The Contributor Staff Posts

The American Dream has always consisted of the idea that hard work would bring great success. It was the idea that anyone could work their way up and acquire a stable career. In order to get to that point it was assumed that you had two options, to go to school or head straight to work.

The American Dream has always consisted of the idea that hard work would bring great success. It was the idea that anyone could work their way up and acquire a stable career. In order to get to that point it was assumed that you had two options, to go to school or head straight to work.

The CEO of TransCanada, the corporation behind the tar sands-carrying Keystone XL, recognized the power of activists in fighting the project but said that even a rejection from the White House won't deter the pipeline from being completed.

To the alarm of environmental groups, oil giant Shell announced on Thursday it was making plans to be able to resume the hunt for oil in Arctic waters in 2014. "Our focus would be very much on the Chukchi [Sea], which is by far the biggest prize; that is the multi-billion barrel prize."

A federal appeals court on Thursday blocked a judge's ruling that found the New York Police Department's stop-and-frisk policy discriminated against minorities, and it took the unusual step of removing her from the case, saying interviews she gave during the trial called her impartiality into question.

Robin Hood and his merry band of economic justice campaigners came to Capitol Hill on Wednesday looking to drum up support among lawmakers for their most contemporary economic policy proposal: a financial transaction tax.

Of the big political issues this year, the battle over reproductive rights has been one of the most bitter. A long list of conservative state legislatures have introduced or passed laws that are expected to lead to the closure of dozens of abortion clinics. These laws have been passed despite a lack of evidence to support them.

McDonald's philanthropic activities have largely been self-serving, allowing the fast-food giant to score massive PR points with limited giving and continued marketing to children, a damning new report reveals.

The fate of gay marriage in Hawaii is in the hands of the state House after smoothly passing in the Senate. A joint House committee involving about half the state's representatives is scheduled for Thursday, with plans to go at least 14 hours with breaks and possibly extending to Friday if enough people want to testify. Officials say about 3,000 people had submitted written testimony by midday Wednesday.

Though a majority of Americans continue to support a practice that is condemned by human rights advocates and banned in most other highly-developed nations, the 60 percent approval rating for state murder is the second lowest in nearly eighty years and shows the recent trend against capital punishment continues.

Though the 'deficit scold dream' of a so-called 'Grand Bargain' may be diminished on Capitol Hill, a mini-version—circulating among some as the 'Small Deal' version of a 2014 austerity budget—is still on the table as congressional budget negotiations are set to resume Wednesday.

The devastation caused by Superstorm Sandy a year ago today thrust the issue of climate change into the center of the presidential campaign and to the top of the national political agenda. And yet in the mayoral race for New York City, one of the epicenters of the tragedy, talk of climate is practically nowhere to be heard.

Even for Congress. They, and others who apparently don't study the facts, believe that Social Security is a government handout. But 'entitlement' means that people who have paid into a program all their lives are entitled to a reasonable return on their investment.

North Dakota, the nation's No. 2 oil producer behind Texas, recorded nearly 300 oil pipeline spills in less than two years, state documents show. None was reported to the public, officials said. The pipeline spills — many of them small — are among some 750 "oil field incidents" that have occurred since January 2012 without public notification.

Oh man, what a mess: A botched design, squabbling contractors, lousy administration oversight, computer glitches and delays, taxpayer money down the drain ... but this is not about the Obamacare website.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has been getting absolutely creamed by the state press for his proposal to create a two-tiered voting system if his lawsuit against the federal government to make voter registration more difficult fails. Now, he’s fighting back.

When ozone pollution skyrocketed in the tiny town of Boulder, Wyo., in 2008, it was relatively easy to identify the culprit as oil and gas drilling, the only major industry in the rural area. Today, a similar situation in San Antonio, Texas, will be more difficult to resolve. The city has violated federal ozone standards dozens of times since 2008, but with so much industrial activity in and around the city, local officials are waiting for the results of a state-funded study to pinpoint the source of the pollution.

Most of us expect about 90 percent of our charitable contributions to go toward funding any charitable cause to which we give. How do you feel about the NFL donating only 8 percent of Pink gear sales toward cancer research? This is one of those big stories that got lost in the giant news vacuum of the failed Obamacare website and subsequent "800" number crash.

For the past couple of days I’ve been thinking about that video. You know the one that follows a 20-something white woman as she walks around New York City for 10 hours and receives a bunch of commentary and demands from men she doesn’t know. The video is effective.

Bill Nye the Science Guy has no patience with climate deniers like Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), whom he faced off with on a recent segment of CBS’s Meet The Press. Blackburn blithely dismissed his contention that climate change is real. Then Nye stepped in.